In the last post I mentioned the Feast of the Immaculate Conception which apparently has two faces. The religious holiday is December 8, but on December 7, and for a week before in large cities, there is the more pop-religious version of La Purisima. I have only a single experience with it, and my experience is in a small town, but it was something. To begin, I gather that La Purisima is something like Halloween. There are no costumes but people go around to houses for treats. But not all houses. The house I live in, however, has a Purisima event every year. I am not sure how many other houses in the pueblo do this, but I think not many. I’ve never seen anything like it.
It started at 4 p.m. I walked out to the patio of the house which is surrounded by a chain link fence on the other side of which is a dirt road. I was taken aback to see in the road outside the fence maybe 40 or 50 people. Many were milling around, pulling down large palm leaves so they could sit in the dirt. Others, including teens and children were pressed up against the gate in the fence maybe 5 rows deep and I mean really pressed against the fence and each other. Inside the fence on the patio were a dozen plastic chairs facing a homemade shrine to Mary with lots of lights and glitter and artificial flowers. I sat in one of the chairs and made small talk with a nine year old sitting next to me. (I am so odd to them.) After 40 minutes or so an older señora stood and the rest of us followed as she and another woman recited readings and led us in songs. The songs are traditional (I heard them on the radio for days in advance) and are sung mostly by women in a distinctive tone—hard to describe—a bit nasally, very loud, a combination of song and chant. In the house the family had accumulated a vast of hand number of handouts, enough to fill two very big cardboard boxes. The treats consisted of sections of cane, candy and fruit. Some were packed in large plastic containers; there were smaller containers, plates and finally a huge number of bags, maybe the size of small lunch bags in the states, all with the aforesaid treats. There were also some plastic balls for children.
After the readings and songs, the family passed out the medium containers to the folks on the patio who then left via the gate, but with great difficulty because the people on the road were so packed against the gate it was hard to get through. We then waited, maybe for a half hour. Musicians showed up with a crew of singers and, once again, had a horrible time making it through the crowd. When they got in and settled on the patio, the Purisima songs started anew, this time with marimba, and guitars and I think a mandolin. There was another señora in this group who spoke at length about the Virgin. When these people, musicians from an outlying campo comunidad, were done—about 7:00—they had to leave by the back entrance, the crowd outside the fence was so deep. The musicians and singers took with them the largest plastic containers of treats.
The time had apparently come for the people in the streets to get treats, too. But the family said that they wouldn’t open the gate until there was some order. The deal is that a few people at a time are let in, maybe 10 or so, and they sing a Purisima song and get a bag of treats. But the people outside, all pushing and shoving, looked like a mob and the family wasn’t letting anyone in until somehow the people better behaved. The stalemate commenced and I must say I felt pretty awkward sitting there on the patio with one or two family members, while outsiders, obviously poor and incredibly determined to get their treats, stood, listening to Purisima songs, without moving from the fence for 3 ½ hours. It was a standoff and I was struck that no one on the outside took charge, said to others, “OK you guys, these people aren’t opening up until we make a line so, you people at the gate, you can go first but get in line so we can get our treats and go home”. Rather everyone stood there without moving. And the family didn’t move either.
I didn’t quite understand what was going on. At first I wondered why the family wanted to provide this treat for the community when it carried such difficulty and great expense. A few days later, someone explained that the person who holds the Purisima celebration does so because s/he promised the Virgin s/he would do so if the Virgin granted a request. So it’s an obligation owed to arrange for the songs and prayers and to give gifts to the people. This helps to explain the attitudes on all sides: the family’s need to give is by way of paying a debt, not necessarily a display of concern for the poor. And the poor are a part of the dynamic; their role is to accept the benevolence. This doesn’t explain the jam up at the fence, though.
By 8 p.m. I was pretty hungry and nothing was happening so I went to the kitchen to make some dinner. When I looked out about 15 minutes later the gate had been opened and some people were singing their song on the patio. I assume they got their treats. It must have taken the family an hour or two to get through all the people who had been waiting.
La Purisima
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